Dominick Cruz to Urijah Faber: We owe UFC fans a trilogy fight

After mulling it over, newly-minuted undisputed UFC bantamweight titleholder Dominick Cruz wants to put a definitive stamp on his rivalry with Urijah Faber.

“The Dominator” just defeated a former teammate of Faber, T.J. Dillashaw, in the main event of UFC Fight Night 81 last Sunday (Jan. 17, 2016) and although the tilt was razor close, he wants to rid himself of “The California Kid” as if he were the black plague.

Cruz told MMA Fighting of his plans for his first title defense:

“For the past four years, the only name I’ve been asked about is Faber, whether I’m on the FOX desk or shopping at the mall. Let’s get him out of my face and out of the way, so I can continue to clean out the division. We owe it to the fans to make this trilogy happen. It’s been almost a decade in the making.”

While the San Diego-based combatant doesn’t have the blessing of his previous adversary’s coach, the fact remains a trilogy fight was supposed to go down at the UFC 148 pay-per-view (PPV) in July 2012.

Of course, numerous injuries on the part of Cruz soiled any potential third match between he and Team Alpha Male’s Faber, who reminded everyone just who the last man was to best Cruz in mixed martial arts (MMA) competition.

Faber currently occupies the No. 3 spot in UFC’s official rankings and has won three of his last four. His win over Cruz came way back in March 2007 via first-round guillotine choke, while he was still defending his World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC) featherweight belt.

A third meeting between Cruz and Faber will likely happen around the summer at the earliest due to a four-to-six week healing process ….View full article